While Waiting for your Pardo Translucent Clay …

April 24, 2013

It’s funny how many comments and emails I got on Monday when I mentioned that I had untouched blocks of Pardo translucent clay in my studio. There is such a demand and yet so little available. I have had email conversations with a contact at Viva Decor but I never got a straight answer as to why its in such short supply or when we might expect to see it more readily available. So what’s a frustrated artist to do? As far as actually getting your hands on some, your best bet in the US seems to be getting on PolyClayPlay.com’s waiting list. (Is it any easier getting it in Europe by chance?)

In the meantime, I say go play with our other options. Pardo may be the clearest (so we’ve heard) but only in the clays themselves. The absolute clearest polymer you can work with is Fimo Decorating Gel. Although it can also be tough to locate in some places, it’s not impossible to get a hold of. (See our post last year regarding Fimo Gel and a false rumor; I listed places to find it.) You may not consider Fimo Gel to be a primary polymer to create forms with but with a little outside-the-box thinking, you’ll find you certainly can work with it as something other than an addition to the surface of clay.

Kathrin Neumaier has been playing extensively with both Pardo Translucent Art Clay and Fimo Gel, sometimes interchangeably. Here is a piece in Pardo Tranlucent clay (and what a fun piece!):

8238403764_6961ae7532

And here are basically the same forms but created in Fimo Gel:

8416763493_dcabfd6e27

 

So, yes, you can form pieces from liquid polymer and get a translucene as good if not better than with the elusive Pardo. And just think … there’s no conditioning!

The easiest way I found to work with liquid polymer as a form is to start out making sheets of cured lpc. You simply drizzle then lightly brush out the liquid polymer on a clean and very smooth, flat surface and bake it like that. A piece of tempered glass or polished sheet metal is an ideal surface. If you don’t have either, you can use a sheet of window glass (you can buy small panes at hardware stores or take the glass out of a picture frame) but you should put untempered glass into a cold oven and wait until it’s completely cooled before taking it out–rapid temperature changes can cause the glass to crack. (And tape up the raw glass edges with masking tape–let’s not cut ourselves!)

If the liquid polymer comes out of the oven still a little milky in spots wave a heat gun over it, keeping the heat a couple inches (50mm) away until it goes clear. (If you baked it on untempered glass, take it off the glass first.) Then you can cut whatever forms you want from that sheet. You can even add more liquid polymer to build it up or add color.

I would say about half the work I did in the first couple years I worked with polymer was created with lpc forms made this way and not just with Fimo Gel. After practicing for a bit, I could get any lpc to got completely clear. It just takes a little patience but its wonderful fun.

Kathrin has made all kinds of forms from liquid polymer including hollow beads and one piece collar necklaces. If you have the translucent bug, you need to take some time to browse through her Flickr pages for some inspiring ideas on what you might try while waiting for your Pardo.

Scribbles and Dots

December 18, 2012

A simple idea to share today–the use of liquid polymer as a textural medium applied with a free-form drawing approach. A nice, thick liquid polymer such as Fimo Deco Gel or Sculpey’s Bake and Bond will stay raised so that you can draw lines, squiggles, dots or whatever you desire onto the surface of your clay or the surface of anything you can then bake.

I remember seeing these pieces by Libby Mills some years ago but never got around to playing with the idea … but for some reason I’m thoroughly enamored of the idea this week and have been scribbling away.

2342283385_bae6204de2_o

2342337399_0850214c71

You can see that Libby often colors her liquid polymer or burnishes it later on. Alcohol inks, oil paints and mica powders can be used to color your scribble medium.

My experiments with other liquid polymers lead me to discover you can actually scribble with them if you take a couple extra steps. I found that adding an abundance of powdered colorant such as pastels, iron oxides or mica powders can get thinner, self-leveling liquid polymers to stand up quite a bit … but only for a little while. They will eventually spread. However, if you use a baked piece of polymer and warm the clay first, the lpc will set on the clay at you scribble. I use my trusty hot plate/mug warmer to heat up the cured clay then, leaving the piece on the warmer, I can draw away. It even works on perpendicular surfaces. You can also warm the cured clay in the oven and then draw on it but you’ll need to work quickly before it cools down too much.

So what do you think? Time to put your scribbling skills to work?

Fimo Deco Gel … alive and well

There was some chatter a month or two ago about Fimo Deco Gel no longer being manufactured. Well, after a discussion with liquid polymer queens Ann and Karen Mitchell (they literally wrote the book on it) — they went directly to the source and have been told by Staedtler, the Fimo manufacturers, that there are no plans to halt production of the wonderfully clear liquid polymer.

Erin “Eirewolf” Metcalf created this Fimo Deco Gel butterfly for her mother some years ago. The clarity of Fimo’s liquid polymer allows for inclusions to shine through like the mica powders tracked through the wings here. The only difficult thing about Fimo’s Deco Gel is finding it. There are still suppliers on Amazon and in the UK there is supplier on Ebay. (Update–Polymer Clay Express is carrying  it too: http://www.polymerclayexpress.com/fimo.html) Otherwise, you can still get it at some of the local and chain craft stores. But it goes fast  — so if you see it, grab it!

While Waiting for your Pardo Translucent Clay …

April 24, 2013
Posted in

It’s funny how many comments and emails I got on Monday when I mentioned that I had untouched blocks of Pardo translucent clay in my studio. There is such a demand and yet so little available. I have had email conversations with a contact at Viva Decor but I never got a straight answer as to why its in such short supply or when we might expect to see it more readily available. So what’s a frustrated artist to do? As far as actually getting your hands on some, your best bet in the US seems to be getting on PolyClayPlay.com’s waiting list. (Is it any easier getting it in Europe by chance?)

In the meantime, I say go play with our other options. Pardo may be the clearest (so we’ve heard) but only in the clays themselves. The absolute clearest polymer you can work with is Fimo Decorating Gel. Although it can also be tough to locate in some places, it’s not impossible to get a hold of. (See our post last year regarding Fimo Gel and a false rumor; I listed places to find it.) You may not consider Fimo Gel to be a primary polymer to create forms with but with a little outside-the-box thinking, you’ll find you certainly can work with it as something other than an addition to the surface of clay.

Kathrin Neumaier has been playing extensively with both Pardo Translucent Art Clay and Fimo Gel, sometimes interchangeably. Here is a piece in Pardo Tranlucent clay (and what a fun piece!):

8238403764_6961ae7532

And here are basically the same forms but created in Fimo Gel:

8416763493_dcabfd6e27

 

So, yes, you can form pieces from liquid polymer and get a translucene as good if not better than with the elusive Pardo. And just think … there’s no conditioning!

The easiest way I found to work with liquid polymer as a form is to start out making sheets of cured lpc. You simply drizzle then lightly brush out the liquid polymer on a clean and very smooth, flat surface and bake it like that. A piece of tempered glass or polished sheet metal is an ideal surface. If you don’t have either, you can use a sheet of window glass (you can buy small panes at hardware stores or take the glass out of a picture frame) but you should put untempered glass into a cold oven and wait until it’s completely cooled before taking it out–rapid temperature changes can cause the glass to crack. (And tape up the raw glass edges with masking tape–let’s not cut ourselves!)

If the liquid polymer comes out of the oven still a little milky in spots wave a heat gun over it, keeping the heat a couple inches (50mm) away until it goes clear. (If you baked it on untempered glass, take it off the glass first.) Then you can cut whatever forms you want from that sheet. You can even add more liquid polymer to build it up or add color.

I would say about half the work I did in the first couple years I worked with polymer was created with lpc forms made this way and not just with Fimo Gel. After practicing for a bit, I could get any lpc to got completely clear. It just takes a little patience but its wonderful fun.

Kathrin has made all kinds of forms from liquid polymer including hollow beads and one piece collar necklaces. If you have the translucent bug, you need to take some time to browse through her Flickr pages for some inspiring ideas on what you might try while waiting for your Pardo.

Read More

Scribbles and Dots

December 18, 2012
Posted in

A simple idea to share today–the use of liquid polymer as a textural medium applied with a free-form drawing approach. A nice, thick liquid polymer such as Fimo Deco Gel or Sculpey’s Bake and Bond will stay raised so that you can draw lines, squiggles, dots or whatever you desire onto the surface of your clay or the surface of anything you can then bake.

I remember seeing these pieces by Libby Mills some years ago but never got around to playing with the idea … but for some reason I’m thoroughly enamored of the idea this week and have been scribbling away.

2342283385_bae6204de2_o

2342337399_0850214c71

You can see that Libby often colors her liquid polymer or burnishes it later on. Alcohol inks, oil paints and mica powders can be used to color your scribble medium.

My experiments with other liquid polymers lead me to discover you can actually scribble with them if you take a couple extra steps. I found that adding an abundance of powdered colorant such as pastels, iron oxides or mica powders can get thinner, self-leveling liquid polymers to stand up quite a bit … but only for a little while. They will eventually spread. However, if you use a baked piece of polymer and warm the clay first, the lpc will set on the clay at you scribble. I use my trusty hot plate/mug warmer to heat up the cured clay then, leaving the piece on the warmer, I can draw away. It even works on perpendicular surfaces. You can also warm the cured clay in the oven and then draw on it but you’ll need to work quickly before it cools down too much.

So what do you think? Time to put your scribbling skills to work?

Read More

Fimo Deco Gel … alive and well

October 23, 2012
Posted in ,

There was some chatter a month or two ago about Fimo Deco Gel no longer being manufactured. Well, after a discussion with liquid polymer queens Ann and Karen Mitchell (they literally wrote the book on it) — they went directly to the source and have been told by Staedtler, the Fimo manufacturers, that there are no plans to halt production of the wonderfully clear liquid polymer.

Erin “Eirewolf” Metcalf created this Fimo Deco Gel butterfly for her mother some years ago. The clarity of Fimo’s liquid polymer allows for inclusions to shine through like the mica powders tracked through the wings here. The only difficult thing about Fimo’s Deco Gel is finding it. There are still suppliers on Amazon and in the UK there is supplier on Ebay. (Update–Polymer Clay Express is carrying  it too: http://www.polymerclayexpress.com/fimo.html) Otherwise, you can still get it at some of the local and chain craft stores. But it goes fast  — so if you see it, grab it!

Read More
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